But I Did It DISCONTINUED
by collegefangirl3791
Summary: This is part 2 in the I Knew Him-verse. Now that Bucky has finally remembered everything and gotten back to himself, he has to cope with the guilt of what he's done, and the self-hatred that has caused with the help of Steve, Nat, Wanda, Sam, and Clint. Trigger Warning: self-harm, severe depression, C-PTSD, suicide attempt(s), reference to/description of torture and violence.
1. Chapter 1: Making Strides

_"'What you did all those years... it wasn't you.'  
'I know. But I did it.'" - Captain America: Civil War  
_

Chapter 1: Making Strides

"Okay, this time should work." Tony backed up and adjusted his goggles, tucking his gloved hands under his arms. "Just... take it slow, and don't try anything crazy. Just make a fist."

Bucky rolled his eyes but, remembering the past few times he'd tried out the arm, he decided to do as Tony said and take it easy.

The new arm still felt strange on his shoulder, although it wasn't too heavy. It just wasn't _right_ there yet. It didn't help that the first time they'd had him fit it on, it had responded entirely too well and the fingers had gotten messed up. Tony had cursed a lot and detached the arm (leaving a strange empty feeling that Bucky really hated) to work with it. They'd tried it twice more, and each time something was off with the calibration, but this time... this time, as Bucky carefully turned his wrist, then curled his fingers inward, it reacted as his real arm would. He opened his hand and lifted it carefully, picking up a pair of tweezers off the table, careful not to pinch the tweezers shut. This time it worked.

"I think it's good," he said, smiling slightly.

"Yes!" Tony scrambled over to a different table and came hurrying back with a pen and a piece of grease-stained paper. "Try writing something. Your name."

Simmons interjected. "Go slowly still, Bucky. We don't want a minor technical difficulty to get dangerous."

Bucky nodded and slid the paper closer to him. He wasn't naturally left-handed, but he'd been trained to be. It felt strange writing "Bucky Barnes" with that hand - he didn't think that was what his handwriting had used to look like. The arm cooperated, and he didn't make any mistakes, which made Simmons and Bruce high-five each other and take several notes.

"We could revolutionize the medical world with this," Tony said happily, sliding his goggles up into his messy hair and pulling off his gloves. "Go ahead and keep that on, Terminator. Just don't do anything stupid with it and don't get it wet. It's supposed to be a waterproof housing, but I want to test that in a controlled setting."

"Thank you," Bucky said, flexing the hand and watching it with a sense of fascination. It looked real, with skin stretched over the metal joints and bones. He forgot where Tony had said he got the skin; he'd been told about it in the midst of a whirlwind of other technical information, and when Tony started talking like that, Bucky preferred to tune him out.

He rolled his shirt sleeve down and left the lab. He couldn't help running an agitated hand through his hair as he got in the elevator – ever since it'd been cut he hadn't been able to help fussing with it. It had been seventy years since he'd had short hair, and it felt ridiculously strange. Shortly after deciding he was going to be Bucky again, he'd done what he'd been wanting to do for some time and asked Natasha to cut his hair. That had been a slightly awkward conversation, but she had agreed to do it with almost a gleeful attitude – he got the sense she found the situation hilarious. Whatever she felt about it, she'd sat him down in the Tower kitchen one day and taken to his hair with a pair of scissors and a somewhat worrying smile. It turned out well, or at least he thought so. He wasn't sure whether his judgement was really trustworthy on that point and he was _not_ going to ask anyone else.

Going upstairs to the common area, he was almost immediately swarmed with questions about his arm by Clint, Natasha, and Steve – all three of whom managed to pester him without actually getting in his face. Bucky was fairly sure it took special talent to be able to do that.

"Go ask Tony," he grumbled, waving them out of the way with his right hand. "I'm sure he'd be happy to brag about it. Still dunno if it's gonna go off in my face." He shuffled past them and aimed for the kitchen. He'd first tried coffee (on Thor's suggestion), and he was hooked. It gave him a rush of abnormal energy and made all his senses feel more alert, which helped him feel more able to deal with potential threats. It felt a little like an adrenaline rush, which he hadn't felt much as the Winter Soldier. It also helped him stay distracted from his memories, not because he didn't think of them but because the thoughts felt less consequential and didn't stay as long.

Steve trailed after him, looking surprisingly small despite the fact that he was actually taller than Bucky. So very different from when they were boys. Bucky tugged open the cabinets, hunting for the mugs (he didn't really know where everything was kept still), and said back over his shoulder, "You need somethin'?"

Steve opened a cabinet and pulled out a green mug with the words "Hulk Smash" printed on it. "Here."

Bucky took the mug, lifted it a little in thanks, and went about pouring himself coffee.

"Um, yeah, actually."

Bucky used his new hand to hold his mug while he stirred his coffee. It felt natural, easy. There was slightly more feeling in the fingers of his left hand than he'd had with his metal arm, which was strange. It was like a phantom sensation, barely there, just noticeable enough to be uncomfortable. "Okay, shoot."

Steve crossed his arms and spoke very carefully. "You remember how I said we needed to publicize you being here?"

Bucky frowned. "Yeah?"

"And said we might need to do some kind of interview or at least get your picture taken?"

"…Kinda." Actually Bucky had been ignoring that part of the topic. He'd just kind of hoped it wouldn't be an issue and moved on. "Why?"

"Well… We managed to set up an interview with NBC news. It'll be here, and you don't have to talk much, but… We need people to be reminded of the Bucky Barnes they read about in history class, not the Winter Soldier who went on the news recently, and the best way we can do that is let people see you. We haven't finalized plans yet, so we can still back out of it and do a published article with pictures instead, but…" Steve didn't finish, but Bucky knew what he was implying: it would be better if they didn't.

From now on, Bucky had to play a part in front of the nation. And a news article with pictures and stale quotes would never convince people as well as seeing him sitting next to Steve answering questions with an appropriately saddened smirk would. Sighing, he lifted his coffee to his lips and took a long sip. He didn't want to do an interview, but he'd managed it with Murdock. He got the sense that this interview would be a shallower thing, maybe a little nostalgic. Not digging into all his difficult memories.

"No, go ahead and confirm it," he shrugged. "It's not a big deal."

Steve gave him that look, that "I'm not sure I believe you" look, and then nodded. "Okay. We will. It'll be on Friday morning, then."

"Cool." Bucky glanced down at his new hand, then got an idea. "Sam?"

The therapist looked up from the book he was reading (it was a _huge_ book) and blinked a few times. "Huh?"

"You wanna play pool?"

Sam grinned slowly. "What, and make it a real challenge this time?"

Bucky scowled. "I was keeping up, thank you. With one hand. If anything that says you're a bad player."

"Oh, that's how it is?" Sam got up and made a big show of rolling up his shirt sleeves, setting his book down on the coffee table.

Bucky smiled a little. "Yup."

Realistically, he thought he could beat Sam now. With two hands and the training he'd had (the training that, unfortunately, was a part of him now), beating Sam couldn't be that hard.

He didn't say so. It would be way more fun to see the look on Sam's face when he won without breaking a sweat.

…

"Unbelievable." Sam tossed his stick onto the table with a hopeless gesture. "You're definitely cheating."

"Nope." Bucky grinned and set down his own stick. "I'm just talented." And his new arm was amazing. He hadn't thought it was possible for Tony to improve on the old arm, but the genius had – go figure – and the prosthesis felt completely natural. Almost eerily so.

Sam grumbled under his breath and retrieved his cue to put it away. "Uhuh. You sure Tony didn't build a targeting system into your arm?"

"Yeah, you're just a sore loser," Bucky said smugly. "You don't wanna admit you lost to a guy with only one arm."

"One arm and years of training," Sam muttered, rolling his eyes. "Unfair."

Bucky snorted. "You can keep sayin' that all you want, Wilson, but that doesn't make it true." He picked up his coffee mug from the edge of the table and took it into the kitchen. Natasha was spreading cream cheese on a bagel with a plastic knife.

"Nice going, Barnes," she said, smiling a little.

Bucky nodded. Talking to Natasha was extremely uncomfortable. Sure, she was nothing but friendly and light-hearted with him, but he always felt like he had a thousand things to apologize for and he didn't know where to begin. "Thanks. It wasn't that hard."

"I heard that!" Wilson called.

"I know," Bucky answered. "That was the idea."

Natasha laughed and took a bite of her bagel. "Well, aren't you modest? How's the haircut working for you, by the way?"

He shrugged, self-consciously reaching up to run his hand through it again. "It's good. Feels a lot better. Thanks."

"No problem. How are you feeling about this whole public attention thing?"

"Great," he said blithely, raising an eyebrow at her. "Just swell. What I always wanted, you know, the whole world knowing about my problems."

Natasha chuckled lightly, sympathetically, and nodded. "I can hardly blame you for that." She glanced over towards the couches. Sam had returned to his huge book and Steve was tapping his fingers listlessly on his knee. When she turned back to him, she spoke more loudly in Russian. _"We should drive Steve insane, what do you think?"_

Bucky wanted to have fun at Steve's expense (that was normal), but he also didn't want to speak Russian. It was a loaded language. He didn't say so, however – the last thing he needed was for people to tiptoe around him anymore than they already did. _"He speaks some of the language."_

 _"Barely any."_ Natasha's conspiratorial smile was so mischievous and bright it threw him a little. One of the many problems with his memories of her was that she was someone very, very different now. It almost made him hope he could find his way back to a normal life, too. But he knew that was mostly just wishful thinking.

 _"Okay, fine."_ He glanced at Steve, who happened to be looking at them, and said to Natasha with a smirk, _"How long do you think it'll take for him to crack?"_

 _"Not too long,"_ Natasha said. _"He's stubborn but I'm willing to bet we're worse."_

 _"Actually,"_ Bucky said, pitching his voice to sound like an agreement. _"He's the stubborn one. Not that I was- I'm not stubborn. But that kid could out-argue me most any day."_

 _"Good thing I'm around then,"_ Natasha chuckled. _"Look at his face."_

Steve looked supremely annoyed, but as if he was trying to hide it. He was staring studiously at his knees, face and neck flushed red.

 _"You're right, Natasha,"_ Bucky nodded, forcing a laugh. _"This could be fun."_ If there was one thing that kept him _himself_ these days, it was Steve's friendship. It was something he could get back, it was something he could call normal. James had told Steve things were never going to be the same again, but now he wanted to at least pretend they were. That was the only thing that kept the screams quieter.

Part of him clung to believing that he was what Steve thought he was. If he could just make Steve believe he was the same, then maybe he'd believe it too. Steve always thought better of him than he did of himself, anyway. This was just… bigger. Worse.

Steve looked back at them and made a face like "I hate you guys" and Bucky couldn't help a grin.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Hey guys! I'm back with more fic!**

 **This chapter takes place a little under a month after the end of I Knew Him. I feel good about it, but in case you guys haven't worked it out by now, I have more trouble with these chill, happy chapters than I do with the sucker-punch-to-the-feels chapters. I have no idea why that is.**

 **Y'all may have noticed that the I Knew Him chapter names were all one-word names. I could not repeat that this time around, I'd run out of words, so since this is part 2, we have two word titles. :)**

 **I'm trying to think if I have anything else to tell you guys... I thought I did. I got my driver's license yesterday! And... OH. I REMEMBER.**

 **I know I'm fairly slow at publishing chapters of this as it is, but I'm going to be even slower now, for which I apologize. But I'm getting really busy with the business of adulting, and also with the business of buckling down and focusing on some original works. (YAYYYY!)**

 **I love you all, thank you for continuing to read and be patient! This is one of the craziest things I've ever done - it's been almost two years working on this fic, and I have literally written a novel's worth of content. Now I know I can write a real book if I take the time. XD**

 **Reviews and suggestions greatly appreciated, as always.**

 ** _Credit to my brother David (who has a Fanfiction but whose URL I don't know) for the cover image of this fic._**


	2. Chapter 2: Disaster Report

_"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it." - J.K. Rowling, 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'_

Chapter 2: Disaster Report

"It's so good to meet you." The reporter was a short, but muscular, Hispanic man with a genial smile. Their background checks had yielded so little of interest about him that Clint didn't trust him, Tony thought he must be impossibly boring, and Natasha wasn't even concerned. "Even if your serum makes all my hard work look pretty pitiful."

He was a personal trainer and fitness guru, so yeah, Steve's manufactured muscles were probably a great source of frustration to him and others in his profession. But there wasn't much Steve could do about that, and so he laughed superficially and shrugged apologetically. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Williams. We're glad you could make it."

"Not at all," he said cheerfully, looking over at Bucky with a nervous but excited smile. "This is a big story you're letting me in on."

Bucky nodded in acknowledgement of his smile, but otherwise just stood still next to Clint with his arms crossed.

"Anyway, if we could get set up… Is it all right for me to bring my camera crew in?"

Tony hesitated. "JARVIS?"

"They're all the same people we vetted previously, Mr. Stark."

"You good, Bucky?"

Bucky shrugged. "Yeah, I guess." Steve could tell he was trying to manage the wry, sarcastic humor that was expected of him, but he looked a little too nervous to pull it off yet.

"Alright, J, bring them up," Tony ordered. Then, while they waited, he installed them on two couches which he'd moved over by one of the massive Tower windows. The lighting there seemed adjusted, probably JARVIS' doing, and Tony seemed determined to sit them down where he wanted them regardless of Mr. Williams' wishes. Steve and Clint sat on one couch, Bucky next to Mr. Williams on the other.

Steve didn't much like that arrangement, but there was usually a method to Tony's madness, so he didn't say anything. Bucky shot him an uncertain look, so Steve smiled as reassuringly as he could.

Mr. Williams sat down and folded his hands in his lap as his film crew trooped into the room. There were only two cameramen, and three other people carrying equipment that Steve knew little, if anything, about. They got set up under the combined direction of JARVIS and Tony, and Steve tried his level best to avoid fidgeting. Bucky had gone impressively still, his face set in an expression of total calm. It would have been convincing if it weren't also impossible.

"Alright, we should be set," Tony said, settling down behind the cameras. The other Avengers had settled awkwardly out of the way, Natasha perched (as she often did) on the arm of a chair, Thor seated sturdily upright in that chair. Sam had his arms crossed, standing as close to them as he reasonably could. He'd wanted to be in the interview, so he could help Bucky if things got difficult, but they'd decided it had better be Clint since people more or less knew who Clint was.

"Sir, what kind of lighting do we want?" A tall, scarred man with large sunglasses leaned over the back of the couch casually. "Not like it matters anyway, but..."

"What?"

"Never mind. Just what lighting?"

Mr. Williams sighed heavily. "Wade, we keep talking about this."

"Yeah but the warm light or the… glaring one?"

"Warm."

Wade grinned and went back to work with his irritated-looking companion. Bucky appeared amused by the exchange.

Mr. Williams gave a brief introduction, had Bucky say "hey" to the camera, then properly began.

"So I'm sure you know, Sergeant Barnes, that most of our viewers were taught since their first American History class that you died fighting Hydra. Imagine our surprise upon learning otherwise – what really happened after that fall?"

Steve waited, tense, for Bucky to answer. He knew they couldn't control the answers Bucky gave (although they had reviewed the questions for Bucky's safety) but part of him wanted to.

"Well..." Bucky smiled sadly. "I lost my arm." He held up his new hand and flexed it a little. "Hydra picked me up and, well, I kinda forgot I was supposed to have died in the first place."

Mr. Williams nodded sympathetically. "Now, I understand this can't be easy to talk about, but I want to clarify... You're wanted as a terrorist now, legally. People have seen you killing."

It was all Steve could do to avoid saying something harsh, but Mr. Williams saw his expression and the somewhat panicked look in Bucky's eyes and held up his hands. "I know, I'm sorry. But it's what happened. Can you honestly say, Sergeant Barnes, that there wasn't any part of you that knew what was going on? Who you were?"

"I can." Bucky rubbed his hands lightly on his jeans. "If someone spent seventy years trying to make you forget you were human, Mr. Williams, I think you would too."

"I understand. And I'm sorry I had to ask, I just wanted to get that out of the way."

Bucky waved his hand dismissively, as if to say it was all okay. Steve unclenched his fist, slowly.

"On to brighter things, Sergeant – can I just call you Bucky?"

Bucky grinned and shrugged. "I guess."

"Alright, Bucky. So what's it been like so far in the 21st century?"

"Confusin'," Bucky chuckled. You have no idea, his eyes said. "Besides tryin' to figure out what happened to me, I have to learn all this new stuff about phones and computers and even elevators – actually, I have..." He dug into his pocket. "This smartphone. Why you call it that I don't know. Anyway, I can't for the life of me figure out how to send a text without half the words getting mangled by, what is it?"

"Autocorrect," Clint snorted. "I'm teaching him how to use the phone and he texts me 'this is really hard' but instead it ended up 'rjs is reallLy harsh,' which I'm fairly sure wasn't even autocorrect's fault. He's just got clumsy fingers."

"It isn't my fault I only have one hand to text with," Bucky grumbled, smiling a little.

"I'm out of here," someone suddenly announced. It was the scarred lights guy, Wade. "Some angsty shit is about to go down and I do not wanna die today." He dropped his equipment, took off sprinting, and before anyone could say anything crashed through the window into the open air, plummeting headfirst towards the street.

Tony stared after him in stupefied horror. "What the he-?"

Steve wasn't sure, later, what happened in that moment. He could only recall a concussive pain before everything was swallowed by crisp, unaltered blackness. His next memory would be a slow realization of smell and touch, smoke and concrete and metal and something prickling on his tongue like copper. Next was the pain, the sensation of sharpness at his back and weight on his legs and a steady, all-over burning. Explosion, he realized. Fire. He tried to move his legs and crack open his eyes – he succeeded at the latter but his legs remained stationary. But now he could see that all that was pinning his legs was a couch, so he sat up and painstakingly shoved it away.

Everything was dust and smoke. He couldn't hear anything but the rush of his own heartbeat and a low ringing. Steve struggled upright and tried not to groan from the surge of pain as his clothes brushed against his burnt skin. The clothes themselves were charred or outright smoldering. There was blood tracing along his jaw from his ears – not good.

Looking around, he saw Thor not far away, huddled on the floor, head bowed. Of course he was alright, but the sight still filled Steve with dread. He couldn't quite process why yet, except that something bad had to have happened.

The building was burning. He saw that, smelt it. A wall, several walls had collapsed, and the furniture was flung out in a massive ring away from what had once been the pool table. He knew without needing to see that the elevator and the stairs weren't an option. The world was shifting around him like the ocean. How long before the rest of the walls and ceiling went? The rest of the building?

He saw film equipment and hands under one of the walls, but he didn't change course. Thor was grieving. Those hands were dead. He knew these things.

Why wasn't he dead too?

He opened his mouth and pronounced the name. "Thor." He wondered if he'd even made a sound – his throat felt as on fire as the rest of him.

The god turned, his usually perfectly-groomed hair and beard matted and dusty, stained dark red. His eyes, too, were red, but not from blood. He spoke, and Steve still couldn't hear anything.

So Thor moved aside, shuffling awkwardly and moving his arms to continue cradling a limp head, a pair of slim shoulders. He said something else, and this time Steve thought he saw him saying "Tony". But he didn't focus much on that. His eyes were on the cascading red curls and the staring green eyes of one of his best friends, Natasha Romanoff.

He felt himself buckling, a combination of the weakness of his bruised and burned legs and the sudden, sharp pain in his chest. He was saying something but he didn't even know what. Natasha had been his first friend since waking up in the new world. She was perhaps the strongest woman he'd ever met. He'd never once imagined that she could die - that seemed almost impossible, formidable as she was. But here she lay, looking so small and insignificant in the face of what had happened. He touched her hand tentatively - it was still somewhat warm. For a moment he imagined that she might still wake up, still blink and look at him and be okay.

But she didn't.

Thor hugged him, all firm shoulders and dusty fabric. Then he gently set Natasha down, stood, and gestured for Steve to follow him.

Steve didn't want to, but after running his fingers through Nat's hair, he forced himself to his feet and made himself move. He pushed all his emotions down into a battered chest and locked it shut. There would be time to look at them later – or maybe not. He let the anger stay and smolder.

Thor led him around debris, past broken and overturned furniture, stepping gingerly through broken glass. Steve saw no more bodies until Thor pointed.

Bucky was crouched next to Sam and Tony, his prosthetic arm gone. Sam was sitting up, eyes open and full of tears, although his legs looked all wrong, but Tony... Tony was clearly dead, ribcage smashed past all hope by a twisted mass of metal that must also have trapped Sam's legs. Steve remembered, with a surge of horrible guilt, that the last thing he'd said to Tony was an insult - jokingly meant perhaps, but an insult all the same. How often had he and Tony fought? And over what, really? Differences in ideology? They'd come from totally different backgrounds, of course they saw thinvs differently. Tony wanted the same things as Steve, in the end. To do the right thing, make the world safer, help people. So much time wasted.

Bucky just looked blank as he glanced back at Thor and Steve, although when he first registered Steve's presence, his eyes took on such a joyous relief that Steve wanted to run and hug him. But he couldn't move.

What had happened? How could everything have gone so terribly wrong? What about JARVIS, hadn't JARVIS seen?

He focused on hurrying over to Bucky and Sam and kneeling down. He formed words, aimed them at Thor. "Where's Clint? And Bruce?"

Thor shrugged, then gestured out at the city. Steve didn't see anything but presumably that meant Thor didn't know where Clint was, and Bruce was running rampant. At least they knew Bruce was alive...

Simmons. Everyone else in the Tower. _Oh God_. Steve pressed his face into his hands and tried to breathe. Thor was the only one of them who could fly, which would be enough to get them out of the building, but everyone else? How long did they have? Had anyone evacuated?

He looked at Thor, angry he couldn't hear. But his friend seemed to understand his many worries (they were leaders, the two of them), and he nodded briefly before launching himself out of the broken window and disappearing from sight. Steve took a quick look at Sam's leg and checked Bucky's arm – his friend's new arm had come off at the socket instead of breaking, or tearing his shoulder.

He wanted to say he was sorry. He wanted to cry. He wanted to curl up in a ball and let himself give in to the horror gnawing at his mind. Tony and Natasha, both dead. Maybe Clint too. Who knew how many others?

But that was not what was needed of him now. So he forced himself to focus on Bucky and Sam and avoid looking at the bloody ruins of Tony's chest.

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah so... Yeah.**

 **Bet you didn't see that coming.**

 **Did you at least enjoy my April 1 Deadpool cameo? It's all good. I'm just gonna leave this here. Anyway.**

 **Since the last time I talked to you I got in a car accident, which was fun. I used that experience to help with this. Don't worry, I was fine, just some bruised legs. I have also started a new job. Yay me!**

 **Love y'all. :)**


	3. Chapter 2: Opinion Piece

_**IMPORTANT: My dear friends, APRIL FOOLS! The last chapter was, as a few of you guessed, a prank. None of that happened in the real story and all your Avengera are intact. While I'm not above killing off characters, I have not chosen to do so in this fic. Enjoy this fairly ordinary, light-angst chapter.**_

* * *

" _Hey young blood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out?  
_ _I'm gonna change you like a remix  
_ _Then I'll raise you like a phoenix  
_ _Wearing our vintage misery  
_ _No, I think it looked a little better on me  
_ _I'm gonna change you like a remix  
_ _Then I'll raise you like a phoenix_

 _Bring home the boys and scrap scrap metal the tanks_  
 _Get hitched, make a career out of robbing banks_  
 _Because the world is just a teller and we are wearing black masks_  
 _"You broke our spirit," says the note we pass_

 _So we can take the world back from a heart attack_  
 _One maniac at a time we will take it back_  
 _You know time crawls on when you're waiting for the song to start_  
 _So dance alone to the beat of your heart. ..._

 _Put on your war paint." - Fallout Boy, ' The Phoenix'_

Chapter 2: Opinion Piece

It was Steve's personal opinion that journalism had become a much less reputable profession since he was a boy, if only because so much was included in that term. The news channels which were supposed to be unbiased but used enough loaded words to sink a ship, the websites run by sensationalists who just wanted to be the next big thing and make money off of gullible minds, the opinion pieces full of swear-words and half-researched "facts."

Mary Jane Watson made him feel a bit better about the future of her profession. She had a quick, intelligent way about her and gave orders in a polite but un-faltering voice. She reminded Steve of a fox, only in part because of her long reddish-orange hair. Her team had their film equipment set up and organized in fifteen minutes, and even Tony wasn't trying to tell her what to do – he just went along with her ideas with a respectful comment every now and then. The atmosphere in the Tower was level, steady, organized – perfect for what they were doing.

Natasha and Pepper were reading over Mary Jane's list of questions, discussing them in low murmurs. Although Clint worried that the practice could smell of censorship, the two of them were only checking questions for bias, and to make sure they didn't trigger Bucky. They had only had to discuss one question with Mary Jane, and from what Steve had been able to see that issue had been easily resolved. Bucky himself was oscillating in the kitchen, coffee mug cupped protectively between his hands. True to form, his face and eyes were shuttered and unreadable – sometimes he seemed so like his old self, but more often Steve caught him looking like a turtle, pulled into his shell and immovable. He never said anything to Bucky about it (honestly he was surprised that was the only concerning thing about his friend these days), but he was starting to feel as if he was being forced to play a part he didn't want to.

He was thrilled to have Bucky back in some form, thrilled that his friend actually talked to him without hostility now. What he didn't like was the feeling that he had to act like everything was normal between them when it really wasn't. Nothing was the same now, whether he liked it or not, and as much as he'd hoped that getting Bucky back might be a reclamation of everything he'd lost when he went under, it wasn't.

He considered going over to see if he could help – there was no way Bucky felt comfortable about this – but he didn't. He still wasn't sure how welcome his input really was, so he looked down and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, and tried to relax.

He only opened his eyes again when someone lightly kicked his shins and he opened his eyes to see Natasha smirking at him. "Come on, let's do this."

He sighed and pushed himself off the couch to go sit on a _different_ couch with Nat. Bucky and Mary Jane were sitting across from them, and the rest of the Avengers had been relegated to sitting out of frame. There had been debate about who to put in the video, but Natasha had suggested that her recent notoriety might give people something other than Bucky to talk about. At the very least, she was good at diffusing situations and making things sound better than they were. If things went wrong somehow, she and Steve were the best people to have around Bucky.

The interview, as Steve had found most interviews did, began with Mary Jane asking the three of them how they were doing. Steve barely paid attention to his own response, watching Bucky's face as he answered in a smooth, unruffled voice. He was smiling a little, eyes dark and soft with emotion. Steve knew intuitively that Bucky was acting, and couldn't decide how to feel about that.

"I'm alright, all things considered," Bucky told Mary Jane. "Yourself?"

Mary Jane said she was good, and Bucky managed to push the small talk a bit farther (discussing the weather and some cat video that was apparently popular on the internet right now) before she got him back on track. Steve couldn't help but grin.

The interview followed the pattern that Steve's first TV appearances had after SHIELD found him: hearkening back to all Bucky's heroism, focusing entirely on his miraculous survival and how grateful everyone was for his service. Steve knew that, like they'd done for him, the news station would show clips of old newsreels and Bucky fighting Nazis throughout the broadcast. The interview only deviated from its focus on Bucky's heroism halfway through, when Mary Jane carefully veered into the territory of the seventy missing years. "Unlike Captain Rogers," she said, calmly, "you weren't frozen for all the time you were gone. I understand from your friends that you underwent extended psychological torture and advanced methods of brainwashing." Bucky nodded, looking a bit trapped. 'I won't ask you about that in detail because I realize that must be hard to talk about. What I want to know is, do you remember it? What was going through your head all those years? Did you even consider the possibility of rescue?"

Bucky folded his hands together, twisting his palms against each other. "I remember, yeah. I didn't remember most of it until about a month ago, but yeah, I do. It didn't take me very long to stop thinkin' about rescue, or escapin'. It was just tryin' to survive, keep my trap shut, and remember who I was." He smiled bitterly. "That was kinda hard, seein' as they were tryin' their level best to make me forget everything. Eventually I did. At that point there wasn't much of anythin' goin' through my head."

Mary Jane nodded sympathetically and asked a few other questions, mostly leading up to how he remembered again. Steve learned something he hadn't known before - Bucky said he'd started to remember after Steve called him Bucky, on the bridge, and that Hydra had wiped his memory after the memories started resurfacing. Steve was asked what that had been like for him, and Mary Jane used that to steer the conversation back to how Steve and Bucky used to act when they were kids.

Steve wished that they didn't keep having to point to the past to remind everyone that Bucky was still a hero, but he went along with the nostalgia as he had learned to do. That was much easier.

The interview aired that evening on NBC, precluded by a long explanation from Lester Holt about Bucky, his history, and where he'd been since his "death." It was presented in a fairly unbiased manner, which unfortunately meant that they showed fuzzy iPhone videos of the Winter Soldier's attacks, photos of the aftermath of the fight on the highway, and descriptions of some of the resulting deaths and public response. Overall, however, Steve thought it was the best they could have done.

Bucky refused to watch the program. Steve could hardly blame him - even he didn't much enjoy watching it, realizing that the entire world was seeing it too. Realizing that if anyone in Hydra doubted the fact that their Soldier was alive and very much not on their side, they wouldn't after this. Realizing that for whatever positivity there would be, the Avengers were going to get a lot of hate for this. Realizing that even if they made it through court and exonerated Bucky, there were always going to be people who hated him for something he couldn't control.

Going public wasn't going to do them any favors, but it was the lesser of two evils.

JARVIS banned them all from most of the internet immediately after the airing, keeping up a running commentary on public opinion without letting them read any of the specific comments, even the good ones. This commentary was in the form of a holographic screen full of statistics projected on an empty wall with typically sassy titles and captions. For the first few days after the broadcast, the response was almost entirely positive. JARVIS reported a great deal of outrage from grieving families (understandably), and ended up creating a statistic called the "idiot opinions," in which he measured the response from the vocal but prejudiced and close-minded members of the internet community. The idiot opinions were regarded with a great deal of interest and concern, but only a little serious consideration was given them.

But over the next week, the stats started shifting. First they got more even, then they took a sharp negative turn as other news channels picked up the story and did research on the Winter Soldier. They were getting all the effects with none of the causes, so Tony released just a little bit of their evidence on Hydra's brainwashing for public consumption. That balanced the opinions, as did several interviews with Thor (considered a bit of a third party) and Clint (the self-proclaimed average Joe Avenger).

Steve felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. Bucky himself seemed more or less alright, but conversely, Steve was struggling to stay optimistic. Between the country's scrutiny, his own emotions, and his concern about Bucky, he barely slept anymore. And when he did, his dreams made his sleep anything but restful.

Most disturbing was a recurring dream in which Bucky was on trial in a room of faceless, sneering judges. Steve thought he was defending him as a witness, but each time he realized he'd really been building up evidence against his friend, and the judges dragged Bucky away.

Sometimes he thought his teammates could tell, the way they watched him, but he didn't really care anymore. He was just tired, and it seemed like his problems and struggles were never going to end. If it wasn't for Sam and Natasha, Steve really wasn't sure what he'd do.

On the Thursday afternoon after the interview, he and Natasha went on an outting in the city to grab burgers and have a chat. It had been Steve's idea, for once - generally he'd been insistent on keeping to himself, but he was being forced to admit that he couldn't manage this alone anymore.

Natasha took him to a gourmet burger place with loud music, lots of wallscreens playing sports games, and the absolute best hamburgers Steve had ever tasted. He managed to have three burgers before he felt full - such were the benefits of an overly fast metabolism. Natasha ate one, herself, and stole half his fries.

"So what's up?" she asked him after finishing her burger (and watching him start into his second). "Why'd a hermit like you want to take me out to lunch?"

Steve rolled his eyes at her and swallowed his huge bite of bacon, beef, and Swiss cheese. "I'm not a hermit."

"You are." She grabbed a handful of his fries. "You don't talk to anyone these days, except sometimes Bucky. I was starting to think you were the one I should be worried about." Which of course meant that she had worried about him. He thought maybe she did a lot of the time, but like him, she wasn't going to admit that to anyone.

He shrugged. "I guess I just have a lot on my mind. It's... It's a lot. Bucky's... not 'back,' exactly, but he knows who he is. I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Natasha tightened her ponytail, took more fries, and looked contemplative. "Yeah." She hesitated before continuing, and when she did she spoke carefully, like she was measuring each word. "When Clint brought me in, I wasn't sure what to think. I had made a decision to care; that was why I came to SHIELD. I knew the implications of that decision, I think, but for a while afterwards I was just focused on figuring out what I had to do, where I fit. When I got comfortable, that's when everything I'd done hit home." She sighed. "I imagine Bucky's already struggling with the guilt, but he's been distracted by trying to play a part and then this whole public relations thing."

Steve nodded, careful to police his expression. Natasha so rarely said anything to him about her life before becoming an Avenger that he was always extremely careful when she did. He didn't want to betray her trust in any way. "I think you're right. I just don't like all this guesswork."

She smiled. "You never do."

Steve chuckled. That was true - he preferred to know what was going on as soon as possible so he knew what to do. All the waiting drove him insane. "So... How is it for you? With having known him and all?" The "all" was a topic that Steve still wasn't sure how to process. It was strange enough thinking that Natasha had trained with Bucky, disregarding the other aspects of their relationship.

Nat wrinkled her nose in an amused but bitter smirk. "Oh, you know, confused, worried, annoyed. He's so tense around me sometimes I think he'll bolt if I so much as blink the wrong way. It isn't so bad - I didn't really know him, anyway, and he's definitely improved now from the Soldier I trained under."

Steve didn't think she was being totally honest with him, but in truth that was the norm. He let it go. There was only so much sharing Natasha seemed willing to do at a given time, and he wasn't going to push his luck.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! I'm back, and your Avengers are alive and sort of well. Do with that information what you will. :)**

 **The chapters are still fairly calm but I am going to be getting into the heavy emotional stuff pretty quickly, so please be aware of the triggers I've mentioned previously.**


	4. Chapter 3: The People

_"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view." - Harper Lee_

Chapter 3: The People

Ali stared in the mirror, straightening her shirt with a quiet sigh. Another interview today, for a job she likely wouldn't get. Architecture was no easy field to break into, it seemed, particularly when one had to explain that they were fired from their last job because they punched their boss in the nose.

It hadn't been her fault. He'd been asking for it, the asshole. Technically she could have had him on a sexual harassment charge, but it was more satisfying to punch him in the face and leave. Strangely, most of the white males she'd interviewed with so far hadn't found that a strong recommendation. Whatever. She had some savings.

Key word being _some_.

At least her vlogging earned her a little money. People apparently thought she was funny and relatable, so talking about current events to a fair-sized audience got her some extra cash. After her interview she planned to discuss the Winter Soldier situation again – it was a controversial topic, but controversy got her views. And she needed views. Unless she got this job in spite of her "I punched my last boss" spiel. Then screw vlogging.

She took one last look at her reflection, second-guessed her blue slacks and jacket for the thousandth time (what else was new), and headed out the door, snagging her purse and portfolio as she went.

How long had she dreamed about actually putting her degree to work? Way too long, probably – the stupid degree had gotten fat and lazy. Realistically, maybe she should thank her previous boss for all the times he groped her ass (ha, hilarious; no way) if it got her off said ass and headed where she wanted to go.

Yeah, let's not get too crazy here, Ali. Maybe she should go back and punch his ugly nose again. Because now no one would hire her because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. Fair, it was not.

Of course maybe if she'd kept her fist to herself and just quit, this would be going better.

But she didn't really regret it anyway.

This architecture firm claimed a lot of prestige for having helped design Stark Tower (which Ali thought was an eyesore, but whatever) and therefore she figured they couldn't be that bad of a place to work. If a literal superhero (although one she didn't like much) worked with them, they must have something to recommend them.

She was met at the entrance by a woman who she assumed was a receptionist but who quickly kept her from making any stupid blunders by introducing herself as the hiring manager. That was a good start – this lady was likely to hear her "I punched my boss" story with a bit more sympathy.

The interview itself went well except that she was given a bottle of water at its start and she managed to spill it all over the carpeted office floor. She could have melted into a similar puddle except that wouldn't have been very professional. Then again, what was the professional reaction to spilling twelve ounces of liquid all over someone else's floor?

They said they'd call her, which was definitely better than she'd expected, so that was a relief. But between the spilled water, her work history, and her skin color, she was a little doubtful they'd hire her. Even if the design manager _had_ ooed and ahhed over her portfolio.

Better not get her hopes up.

Eh, who was she kidding? Her hopes were so high she was considering sending them to rehab. This was the best an interview had gone in literally months.

She changing into sweatpants and a cozy sweater, set up her camera, and flopped onto her bed. She spent about twenty minutes going into the most recent details on the Winter Soldier situation, including the most popular late-night commentaries and some photos taken in the Tower of the Avengers eating Chipotle with the guy. She tried to keep her vlogs pretty open-ended, so to that end she researched a lot.

"Hey guys." With the camera on and her favorite blanket folded over her legs, she was ready for anything. Mostly. "It's Ali Pérez back with the most talked issues of the week. I had another job interview today, so I'm in my comfy clothes, but I think it went well for once. I failed pretty hard at it, but I drew some good pictures, so on balance I think it was good."

Her opinion on Bucky Barnes hadn't changed much since the story first aired. When she'd been in school, her favorite period of history had been World War 2. It always sounded like a sci-fi movie: energy-beam guns, a rogue science division going up against the Nazis and the good guys, a literal superhero and his team punching Hitler (she didn't know how many papers she'd written on the Howling Commandoes, alone). Now her whole world was a sci-fi movie (aliens, for crying out loud), and although her opinion on World War 2 Bucky Barnes was that he was one of the greatest heroes in the world, her feelings about modern Barnes were much more mixed.

She, like so many others, had watched the events in Washington, D.C., unfold with a cold horror in the pit of her stomach. First there had been the news that Steve Rogers, Captain America, one of her childhood heroes, had gone rogue and may have been involved in a terrorist attack that resulted in the assassination of the head of SHIELD. Then there were the men who'd shot up a D.C. overpass and fought Black Widow and Captain America (one of whom, it later turned out, was the Winter Soldier). Then there had been helicarriers in the sky, SHIELD owned but making the whole country feel as if they were being watched, menaced. And before that news even had a chance to sink in, those same helicarriers had crashed back to earth wreathed in smoke and flames. And all of this terror precluded the announcement that Hydra had been around all along, pulling strings and controlling their most powerful security organizations. Many adults were remembering 9/11, others were convinced the aliens were back, but _everyone_ was utterly terrified. It was a horrible week.

So naturally even Ali couldn't help but mistrust this new development. Of course she wanted to believe that Bucky Barnes was back, but there was no disputing the fact that he had done some very public, very devastating things. She'd seen the interviews with the families of his victims. She knew what was going on. She'd also seen the facts the Avengers released about Hydra's treatment of Barnes.

So she verbalized all that to her vlog, keeping it as light as she could. She wanted to get her viewers to be critical and smart, because there was a lot of news out there and she was a little worried about the Soldier and what would happen to him if everyone insisted on believing he was evil.

Technically her vlog couldn't change anything, but this was what she did. Anyway, she liked to talk. It was soothing, just rambling on about things.

Things like robot-armed terrorists that had been born in the 1910s. You know, no big deal. Whatever.

* * *

Sometimes Ben wished he just didn't know.

His life had been hard enough before the story broke and now he could think of nothing else but the accident.

The Winter Soldier had killed his son. That was how he characterized it, although a few of his well-meaning friends tried telling him that wasn't fair, it was really another car, a different gunman. "Just" a terrified driver, they said, "just" some other terrorist. He didn't really care who had done the shooting, he knew whose fault it was. He'd been on that highway. He'd seen the extra footage. The Winter Soldier had been giving the orders and leading the fight, and it didn't matter if he wasn't the one who'd shot his son.

Life in their world wasn't fair anymore. Things like this happened all the time. Most people had accepted that far worse things would happen to all of them without these fights, but none of them much liked that even when they'd been saved, they had to mourn. The government liked to capitalize on that; Ben had seen a few too many pictures of victims' faces on-screen as politicians ranted about how the Avengers didn't have enough oversight. Maybe it wouldn't bother him as much if his own son hadn't been added to the scrolling list.

It wasn't the Avengers' fault his son was dead, it was that metal-armed terrorist's, but no one was doing anything about that. He knew the Soldier was supposed to go on trial. He also knew that with the money the Avengers had, and the connections, and the sheer pressure of trying to convict Steve Rogers's "friend"… Nothing would happen. Nothing would happen and that _terrorist_ would walk down the street when his son was dead and buried and everyone would sympathize with a killer while every day he was alone he was alone he was alone and that wasn't all. He would have to treat the Soldier like a hero

A hero when he didn't even save people he killed them – they let them die – and no one did anything and Jesse's little face was staring back at him out of the dust as his leg hurt. Because. Because. It wasn't fair. Jesse died and his killer lived and was called a war hero and that. was. not. right. Their bus rolled over and over. No one cared and no one would see and it was all falling apart no one saw him no one cared about anyone but themselves why did it _matter_ so much? to them that some stranger got justice when a child didn't when he didn't when his world was _gone_ -

Stop. Breathe. In; one, two, three, four. Out; one, two, three, four.

He knew he was still allowed to grieve. It was the panicking that was bad, said the grief counsellor. So he had to breathe.

Work was hell now. They were very respectful of his space but he still had clients to talk to, paperwork to be completed. But today was Saturday, and Saturday was alright. His wife, who had always been tougher than he was, had curled up on their couch with a book and was reading comfortably. She had sadder eyes now, and he knew she too was still having the nightmares. But she didn't have the panic attacks he did, and she wasn't as angry at the Soldier. (She still was. But not like him. She hadn't seen that inhuman _thing_ stalking past the bus, sure it would kill him. No eyes, no expression. No hesitation. Like a ghost. It was not Bucky Barnes, whatever anyone said. It was a creature, and looking at it made him icy, made his stomach clench, and he so viscerally wanted to get away from that gun, that arm, that unceasing stride forward, and the sounds of people dying.)

"Good morning, honey." He blinked and smiled at Erin, pushing himself to go sit down. He still had this, and this was so good. She was his everything now. "One of those mornings, huh?" she said lightly, although her eyes got sadder. "Have you eaten yet?"

"No," he admitted, smiling a little. "I haven't. Do we have anything special?"

"Just cereal." She nudged her cold bare feet against his leg insistently. "Go eat. It helps."

He made a face at her but went to do as she said. It did kind of help, all the self-care things that everyone (literally everyone) he knew reminded him of. Drink water. Try to sleep. Eat healthy meals. Exercise. Socialize. Talk about your feelings. He knew all that was good, it just didn't feel like it sometimes.

He dug into the cabinet for his favorite gluten free peach oatmeal which he poured into his favorite peach bowl before turning on the stove burner under their old stainless steel kettle. He felt Erin watching him but pretended he didn't – he didn't want to talk to her about his almost-panic attack that morning. Knowing her, she knew already that he wasn't himself and would comment on it and then he'd have to talk about it.

Which he was supposed to do but really didn't want to.

She came into the kitchen, poured herself more coffee, and asked him, "What happened? Nightmare?"

He sighed. "No. I just started overthinking things, I'm fine." She snorted a little like she thought that was a ridiculous thing to say – it kind of was. She knew what it meant when he started overthinking stuff. Why he was still lying to her about this he wasn't quite sure. "I just mean I didn't totally lose it."

She nodded. "I understand. What started it?"

He shrugged. "I just got to thinking about the court case, and it went from there."

"Oh, honey," she sighed, not a frustrated kind of sigh but a sad one. "I wish you didn't have to think about that."

"Yeah," he said listlessly, turning off the stove so the kettle wouldn't have time to start screeching, and pouring the steaming water into his bowl. "I just can't stop. I hate him, Erin," he added, softly, carefully. It wasn't something he said a lot – a few people had started telling him that wasn't fair to Bucky Barnes and that he shouldn't make judgements until he had all the facts. But he didn't think that was fair of _them_. "This is all his fault."

Hesitantly, but firmly, Erin nodded. "I know," she said. Both of them knew how much the word "this" encompassed.

* * *

 **A/N: This is not a normal chapter, obviously. This is a brief foray into something I've seen some authors I like doing. Essentially I'm trying to make you see what the public is thinking in a way that you don't immediately assume they're prejudiced against Bucky.**

 **If you respond to this chapter with "well they just don't know Bucky" that is, of course, true. But it's also not fair to these two characters who I've hopefully made at least a little sympathetic. And you must also realize that in this situation, we would all be in the position that these two are: not knowing anything besides what the media tells us and what we've seen ourselves. Idk where I'm going with this author's note except I think I'm trying to say,**

 **A) to tell me if I made these characters well and if you like them**

 **B) that people can get different results from the same facts based on their experience.**

 **On a side note, I picture Ali looking like America Chavez but with shorter hair.**

 **While we're here, I have a full-time internship going on where I write articles and things for the marketing department of a company. Also I know which college I'm going to. And I'm reading Harry Potter for the first time!**

 **The next chapter is already in the works so it should go faster than this one did.**


	5. Chapter 4: I'm Okay

_"'So, um, what if I did tell her the truth?'  
_ _'She'll hate you.'  
_ _'No no no, maybe she would understand, maybe everyone would understand-'  
_ _'Everyone will hate you. … You think you're going to turn around, all of a sudden, and start telling everyone the truth? You can't even tell yourself the truth.'" - Dear Evan Hansen, 'For Forever (Reprise)'_

Chapter 4: I'm Okay

Bucky stared longingly out his windows, taking in the city with hungry eyes. The bustle of the world outside seemed so much more welcoming than it used to. Only part of him still saw it as somewhere to escape, the traffic and crowds as a way to lose pursuers. A larger part was trying to reconcile it with the city he used to know. The rest of him welcomed its speed and distant noise as a distraction from the noises in his head. If he could only get out to it, drown himself in the people and lights and unfamiliar streets. But he couldn't.

He wasn't technically allowed to go outside, even just on the roof of the building. He'd agreed to those restrictions because he didn't actually have a choice. The government said he was a danger to civilians, and the Avengers, citing his safety, agreed to the new rule. Never mind that Bucky hadn't been outside for weeks or anywhere but this building for months. And since he knew that JARVIS was an artificial intelligence, meaning that he didn't need to sleep and he didn't have lapses of judgement or attention, there was no "sneaking past" JARVIS or waiting for him to mess up. There was something that hurt about realizing that even here nothing he did was private, his own. Steve had promised him that JARVIS wouldn't share Bucky's activities with anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, just like he was one of the team. Bucky pretended, to Steve, that that made it alright, but it didn't.

No, he didn't want to stay here. He found that the concept of running away, vanishing into a crowd and becoming just another unknown face, was an addictive dream. A dream because it was near impossible now – his face was familiar, his whereabouts known, and his minders clever enough (probably) to catch him. It wasn't that he didn't like the Avengers, or that they were overbearing or unfair or mistrustful, it was… other things.

Tony looked like his father, too much like him. Sometimes the admission was on the tip of Bucky's tongue, and he could hear himself saying it: "I killed your father." But there was no good way to say that, no good way to tell the person responsible for his safety that he had murdered his parents in cold blood. It was harder because Bucky had cared about Howard, even though Howard had always been a little too cavalier for his liking about certain things. Not that Tony would care about Bucky's grief if he found out.

Natasha was one barbed memory after another, someone he couldn't understand and couldn't escape. He knew he should let their shared past go – it was only painful for him and awkward for her – but he couldn't seem to. Although sometimes it captured his imagination how she _had_ let go. Part of him thought that if she'd been able to let go of her past and move on, maybe he could too. Another impossible dream.

And for all that Bucky felt safe with Steve, he also always felt like he had to lie to him. He knew, logically, that Steve didn't expect Bucky to be the same as he'd been seventy years ago, but everyone seemed to expect that of him, and it was hard to stop pretending. It was safer, too, to be someone he wasn't.

The thought of running away and being something else, something normal was a precious fantasy he clung to, because maybe if he ran fast enough he could leave the screams behind.

There were so many screams. In his dreams, in his unguarded moments; his screams, their screams; sometimes moans and gibberish but always, always full of hate. It got worse when he looked at JARVIS' statistics on the wallscreen. The statistics that showed Stark brand stock dropping at a slow but steady rate, the ones that showed a red bar of anger slowly rising higher and higher above its counterparts.

Tony said the government could publicize Bucky's crimes better than the Avengers could publicize the things that would defend him, and they couldn't risk letting people see him as he was now because letting anyone into the Tower at this point was too dangerous, and letting him out in public was clearly not an option. Even the Stark Enterprises employees had been moved out of the Tower to a temporary facility elsewhere in the city. And as for their evidence, Murdock insisted it was best kept their own for now. It was in their interests, Murdock said, if the public only got the full force of the evidence when the trial was going on. Bucky didn't really care at this point. He was distracted by keeping himself sane.

"Hey, Buck."

He turned and smiled half-heartedly at Steve. "Hey. Need somethin'?"

"No," Steve said. Bucky wasn't sure he was telling the truth, but he didn't comment on it. "Just bored to death is all."

"Mm." Bucky shrugged and looked back out the window. "Have you tried botherin' Tony? He always seems to be doin' somethin' entertainin'."

"He likes to 'entertain' himself by making fun of me," Steve huffed. "So no."

"Aw, come on, Steve," Bucky said. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Shut up." Steve waved his hand good-naturedly. "What're you doing?"

"Admirin' the view. City's changed a bit."

"A bit, yeah."

"So actually I'm bored too. Whaddya say we go someplace, get food?"

Predictably, Steve sighed and looked away. "You know we can't, Buck. It isn't safe."

"Aw, hell."

"Yeah."

"You're a bundle of laughs, ain't'cha? Come on, what about stickin' it to the government? Can't we just go anyway?"

"Sticking it to the government isn't really in your best interest right now."

Of course it wasn't. Bucky grumbled under his breath and rubbed his left arm. This was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. He could tell Steve was feeling guilty, though, and while he kind of wanted to use that to his advantage, maybe get some outside time anyway, he couldn't bring himself to do it. So he pushed himself to say something he'd been thinking for a few weeks. "So I feel like I gotta apologize for somethin' I said to you, when I was, you know, screwed up."

Steve immediately pulled a face, which Bucky had categorized as the "oh come on, no man it wasn't your fault" face. Bless Steve for his insistence that Bucky was blameless in the whole thing, but he didn't seem to understand that, ultimately, it didn't matter. He held up a hand.

"Shut your face, punk, I know it wasn't my fault. You don't gotta tell me every time. Now, here's the thing. I told you that you let me fall off the train cuz you wanted me gone. Like you don't already worry about that stuff, since you're a dumbass."

Steve started sputtering, stuck somewhere between trying to be reassuring and being very offended.

"But I know you didn't. And since you ain't gonna listen to yourself I'm gonna tell you: for the record, I ain't mad at you. I fell and there's nothin' you coulda done and sometimes you gotta deal with that." He grinned bitterly. "You've been tellin' me exactly that for a while now, and now I bet you know that it don't actually help worth a damn."

Steve laughed shortly, seeming surprised at his own amusement. "Okay, okay, sorry."

" _Why_ ," Bucky groaned, disbelieving, "is it that when I'm tryin' to apologize to you, you turn it around on me?"

"It isn't my fault!"

"Oh, for- Steve." Bucky gave up. He wasn't good at these sorts of conversations, especially with Steve, because Steve just didn't follow the script Bucky wanted him to. Bucky wanted it to be straightforward, where he said the things he needed to, Steve got it, and they moved on. But Steve was a punk who just wanted to argue technicalities like "well you didn't decide to, it was Hydra."

 _Oh yeah, that's right, forgot, guess in my memories when I was choking the life out of Howard, that wasn't my hand and I was completely uninvolved._

It wasn't like Steve was stupid, or wrong, he just didn't understand. Bucky thought Natasha might, but, well, he still wasn't talking to her much. He did think he should talk to Clint, sometimes, but whenever he thought seriously about it, he had to acknowledge that actually he didn't want to talk to anyone about his feelings.

Steve swayed back and forth for a second, then blurted, "I just wonder what you're thinking, sometimes."

"Don't everybody," Bucky mumbled. That made Steve laugh a little, but then he kept talking.

"I just, I mean… You talk a lot, around everyone, but sometimes you just sort of… stop, and I guess I just wonder if you're okay?"

Shit. Bucky knew he got lost in thought sometimes, but he'd thought he'd done better at hiding that from everyone else. Still, talking over the screaming was hard, and sometimes he had to stop and try to block it out. "Steve, I haven't been 'okay' for almost eighty years. Can you stop askin' me that stupid question?"

"You know what I mean," Steve said stubbornly.

"Actually, I'm not sure I do," Bucky said wearily. "What do you want me to tell you? That I'm not feelin' guilty? Cuz that would be bullshit. That I'm fine? I'm not. What the hell am I supposed to say?"

"I don't know, maybe there isn't somethin' you're 'supposed' to do, Buck, maybe you could just answer me!" Frustrated, Steve tapped his fist hard against his thigh, then crossed his arms. "What, you really think I think you're gonna be fine? I'm not fine, none of us here are 'fine,' so maybe you could just answer what you know I'm askin'. It's not rocket science, I just wanna know if you're managin'."

Bucky looked down. Yeah, he knew what Steve meant. He knew what they all meant. It was like a scale. "Okay" meant he wasn't going to start breaking things or screaming because he was handling his feelings well enough. "Okay" meant he could deal with the stuff in his head. "Not okay" ranged from "I'm going to cry" to "I'm considering jumping off the roof." When they asked, all they meant was "do you need us to help somehow." He wanted to do things alone, but he understood that when they said "are you okay" they were offering him a way to ask for help. He'd figured this out a few weeks ago one day in the lab, when Bruce had been working on something and Tony had taken a break from his project, touched Bruce's shoulder and said, "Hey, you good?" He'd played it off like it was casual, but Bucky had caught the way Bruce smiled wryly, looking anything _but_ good, and said "Yeah."

None of them was good at asking for help, so they tried to make it easier.

It wasn't really easier. Bucky didn't like that they did that. It meant they were watching, it meant they thought he was struggling when he was trying to keep them from noticing.

"I'm managin'," he said quietly. The pitch of the screaming changed to a sound like laughter. "Gotta lot to think about, believe it or not."

Steve sighed. "I know you do, I just…"

"You worry," Bucky said. "You worry so much it's turnin' your hair grey to match your age."

"It's not- I just-"

"Look, you can worry if you want, Stevie," he said, turning and walking away from the window. Steve followed him, still sputtering a little. "But just cuz you're worried don't mean I ain't okay." Steve looked just a breath away from calling his bullshit, so he waved both hands to signal the end of the conversation. "Just… let it go, alright? Can we just talk about somethin' else? Like that time you got chucked in a dumpster and I barely got you out cuz we were both too short."

He knew that pushing the conversation towards their shared past was an obvious cop-out, and also that Steve was getting sick of it, but his friend (to his credit) sighed and went along with it. "Why the hell do you wanna talk about that? You were freakin' out almost more than I was."

"I was not!" Bucky protested, although Steve was right. They'd been hanging out in a neighborhood they weren't supposed to be in, and he'd accidentally run afoul of an older boy who Bucky was still fairly sure had been stealing. Jumping to Bucky's defense, Steve had immediately started yelling at the kid, and long story short, been thrown into a dumpster. Since they were both no older than ten at the time, Steve couldn't get himself out, and Bucky didn't want to go find an adult to help (because then they'd have to admit to breaking the rules). So instead, he'd clambered into the dumpster, given Steve a boost out, and then spent ten minutes trying to pile trash against the side so he could scramble out himself. Their mothers never managed to get out of them where they'd been, other than they'd ended up in a dumpster somewhere (since they couldn't hide the stench).

"You were," Steve insisted. "And then you almost couldn't get out of the dumpster yourself. I had to haul you over the edge at the last second."

"Yeah, and you tore my shirt and my ma wouldn't let me hear the end of it for at least one month."

Two buttons he'd lost off that shirt. His ma had mended it, but she lectured him for a long time. He'd heard it and actually listened, and it was good he did, because it wasn't even a year later that the whole country spiraled into what Steve told him was now called the "Great Depression." Bucky thought that name was appropriate. For him and Steve, whose families were already on the brink, it had been one of the worst experiences of their lives. Sure, he'd been through a lot worse since, but he still remembered how desperate his parents had gotten to looking, how a few years before the end of the crisis Steve's ma had died. He invited Steve to stay in their house, but they barely had enough to feed him.

"You're doing it again," Steve huffed at him, and Bucky blinked and shook his head.

"Shit. Sorry. I was just thinkin' – about the Depression, actually."

"Oh." Steve nodded. "Feels like it wasn't a big deal sometimes, doesn't it?"

"Kind of. I guess a lot's happened."

"Yeah. At least we always have something to eat now," Steve said, shrugging thoughtfully. "Even if we're both screwed up."

"I'll drink to that," Bucky snorted. "Or I would if I could even get drunk anymore. When I signed up for super muscles I never thought it would mean no more gettin' drunk."

"You didn't sign up," Steve said wryly.

Yeah, no kidding. Not even close. Bucky rolled his eyes and made for the kitchen. Even if he couldn't get drunk, he was still going to have a drink and a sandwich. "Whatever, pal. Same difference. Didn't figure on this part."

"Yeah, neither did I."

"Not that you'd try to get drunk, you goody-two-shoes. You haven't abused a substance in your life."

"Actually I have. I tried to get drunk after you died. That's how I found out I couldn't."

Bucky paused, fridge door half-open, then forced himself to pretend he didn't care. Stupid Steve, and stupid him for always worrying about Steve so much. "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard, you stupid punk. What, were you so mad you couldn't get wasted that you decided a suicide mission was the next best thing? Cuz I maintain that your judgement is actually total shit."

"Whatever. Jerk."

"Punk." Bucky closed the fridge, punched Steve on the arm, and tried to ignore how the screams just got louder.

* * *

 **A/N:** **So I have this amazing new headcannon that (obviously) Steve and Bucky had really thick Brooklyn accents. And Steve kind of learned to lose his because his mom taught him to use better grammar and then once he was famous and in charge he dropped most of the slang because he was supposed to be this classic American guy. But the headcannon part is that when Bucky gets used to not being the Soldier again, he has that accent again, and it's just really thick and classic New York and so Steve starts talking that way again and when he gets excited or mad he goes full Brooklyn. Basically I love writing New York accents.**

 **Sorry this took me so long, btw! I started college, so I have a lot going on. Also I have become obsessed with Broadway, so I'm working a lot on a Dear Evan Hansen fanfic (with friendship and angst, as always). Go check that out!**

 **Hope you guys are still on board with this fic - let me know what you think of this new chapter!**


	6. Update

**I remember that some time ago I promised not to discontinue this story. After literally a year without updating, I am going to break that promise.**

 **My interest in this story isn't the same as it once was, and at this point my writing style and my characterization are so different from what they were when I was writing this, that trying to go back to working on it would be very difficult and it wouldn't read well. I am not going to delete this piece, however, since I did work very hard on it and I know that a lot of you did like it for a while.**

 **Thank you to all of you for reading both this story and its predecessor - to those of you who were regular commenters, especially, I'm really grateful.**

 **You can still find me on Tumblr posting about the MCU and Star Wars at** **collegefangirl3791 :)**


End file.
